


a heart like a wildflower

by Nimravidae



Category: 18th Century CE RPF, American Revolution RPF, Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Agoraphobia, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Beekeeping, Healing, M/M, Medicated Panic Disorders, Mentions of Gaslighting, Mentions of Racism, Panic Attacks, Past Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, References to physical abuse, Rural Setting, Slow Burn, Small Towns, Stalking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2018-12-06 07:44:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11596104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nimravidae/pseuds/Nimravidae
Summary: Escaping a life of fear, Benjamin Tallmadge finds himself in the small and quiet town of Honeysuckle Ridge, Virginia on a whim. He came looking for solitude, instead he finds a reclusive beekeeper and honey salesman who is more than willing to show him the path towards recovery.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously, healing through nature is sort of a Brand of mine.
> 
> Feat. Beekeeper George Washington

 

_ “I hope you are blessed with a heart like a wildflower. Strong enough to rise again after being trampled upon, tough enough to weather the worst of the summer storms, and able to grow and flourish even in the most broken places.” -- Nikita Gill _

 

“It’s not much, but...” The woman holding the door open trails off as Ben steps over the threshold. The short hall between the stairway and the single door on the other end was almost as overbearingly humid as the street, only without even that whisper of a breeze. 

But the whole state had been sticky-hot and exhausting, even the low whir of his motel room’s cheap A/C unit wasn’t enough to cut through the thick blanket of summer that buzzed through the atmosphere. It’s a lazy sort of heat, but not forgiving in the slightest. Ben’s thin t-shirt sticks mercilessly to his back as sweat prickles at the back of his neck, he knows he’s not the most appealing sight right now, but no one he’s seen milling about on the street looked much better. 

The building itself was fairly attractive from the sidewalk, a quaint two-floor brick structure with a bakery and cafe downstairs (bustling all day, according to the owners, but they close at eight so it won’t keep him up) and a studio apartment built above it. Rent was almost unnervingly cheap, but he figured they were more just looking for a bit of extra cash instead of looking to subsidize the shop with the apartment. The outside hall is plastered in out-dated wallpaper, peeling away at the corners, and the stairwell that he’d been led up through was no better at all, but Ben really didn’t mind.

He wanted a cheap, hidden, out of the way place, and he’s stepping through the doorway of one now. The woman, whose name he totally forgot, clicks the door shut gently behind them. She’s got a thick accent that Ben thinks might be French, judging by the choux pastry filling the display cases and the occasional dotting of French flags in the cafe downstairs. 

She speaks clearly, though, as she leads him through the minuscule space. “As you can see from the listing, it is a small apartment, but it has what you might need.” She shows him around. The double-use living-and-bed-room is small and opposite the door, on the other end of the apartment. He thinks it might look bigger without the couch, but he wanted it furnished. He didn’t want to subject himself to a lonely trek to IKEA where he’ll have to fork over the last of his savings. 

It’s modestly decorated. The couch is the same sort of soft-looking beige that looks like it’s out of every single sale furniture catalogue known to man, there’s a warm mahogany colored rug down beneath it and the low, but sturdy-looking coffee table. On the other end of it, there’s a basic raised frame for a full-sized bed. 

No overhead lights to illuminate it, but there’s fairly large double-hung windows on both of the walls. There’s also the open kitchen with its own light near enough that Ben would really only have to weigh the pros and cons of getting a lamp of some description. 

It’s outdated hardwood flooring from the entrance all the way back, with the only exception being the linoleum that covers the floor of the kitchen immediately to his left upon stepping inside. It extends out a couple feet from the counters and the oven before stopping at a lip. On the first patch of flooring is a dark wooden table with two matching chairs. There’s a coat closet to the right of the entrance, and just past it the doorway to a bathroom that’s so small the woman has to let ben in first and point out the fixtures from the doorway. Bathtub and shower, sink, toilet. All the things one assumes would be in a bathroom. 

“It’s nice,” Ben says, a little uselessly once they reach the end of the five-minute tour. It’s really all he wants, all he needs. Someplace new, someplace no one knows him. “Really. I like it. Do you guys have applications or something?”

“We do, for the usual formalities and such. Background checks, credit checks, as I’m sure you are aware. You said you were looking to move soon, yes?” She busies herself moving one of those pseudo-welcoming flower arrangements on a counter in the kitchen.  

“Yeah, I’m uh, I’m staying in a motel around twenty minutes away. For as long as I need to.” He doesn’t say it’s getting close to breaking the bank. “I don’t have a current source of income, I think I mentioned this over the phone, yeah?”

The woman’s brow pinched and Ben really needs to learn her name. “It is hard times, we want to work with people nonetheless. You said you could pay up to three months in advance?”

He’s got a credit card he hasn’t maxed yet so, “That’s right. Yeah. I saw a bunch of help wanted signs coming down Main Street.”

Main Street, it had seemed, was essentially most of the non-resident part of town. It stretched from one end to the other with diners and stores, breaking at some point into a slightly more urbanized stretch, with more chains and gas stations than mom and pop shops. It didn’t look particularly exciting from the window of his cab, it looked like the sleepy sort of softness that accompanies a sunset. A catch-22 for Ben. The idea of being in a city, a place where looking over his shoulder every breath meant he would be staring down hundreds of people on a sidewalk, it made him queasy and dizzy. Just the fleeting thought made his lips twitch down and and him really regret forgetting to grab his Ativan bottle before leaving the motel. 

City had been out of the question. Too crowded, too busy. Too much to keep an eye on, too many people. But a small town had issues too. Ben didn’t want to be where anyone knew him, that was the whole idea. That was why he tore up his the ticket for his bus connection in Richmond  _ and  _ his flight from Atlanta. That was why he poured his money into a motel and a chance at this studio apartment in the middle of almost nowhere. 

No one knew him. No one  _ could  _ know him. 

“We are hiring,” she says suddenly and casually enough for Ben to think she might have spent a while debating telling him that. She picks a dead petal off the counter. Ben tries not to think about why flowers make him sick. “My husband and I can only handle so much. This apartment used to belong to a couple who worked for us, but unfortunately they moved to be closer to one of their families. There are few visitors looking to stay here.”

Ah. Ben lifted a shoulder and let it drop. “Have an application for that too? Two birds, one stone?” 

She tilts her head at the idiom but doesn't ask about it. Instead she asks, “Do you bake?” 

For a second, he remembers pans clattering across the floor of an expensive, expansive, kitchen. He remembers screaming. Yelling. Fighting. “I can,” is the only way he can think to respond, a few moments later. 

It’s good enough for her, apparently, as she straightens up. “Follow me, I will get you both.” 

He gets the keys and the job just a few days later, after a short and cheery phone call from the other owner, Gilbert. It’s just clearing tables and bringing food from the counter, occasionally stocking in the mornings and cleaning at night, but it’s work. It pays. Adrienne, as Ben finally caved and asked her name again before leaving the last time, brought the papers to finalize and sign upstairs and took the payment for the three months, including a prorated chunk for the rest of June, before flipping through the papers at Ben’s little table.

“And you can start Monday, yes? We can take a morning or an afternoon this weekend to show you around, the shop, I mean. But should you need an escort around our little town, Gilbert will be excited to introduce you.”

Ben doesn’t want to go anywhere. It was one of those days where walking through the crowded cafe and then being outside (outside, where anyone can see him, where anyone can find him) long enough for Gilbert to wrangle the key to the outside stairwell off a ring to give to Ben was too much. He’s itching to be alone, to have a little quiet where he can triple-check the locks and draw the curtains and sit there, in the quiet solitude. 

There’s a new flower arrangement sitting where the old one was. This one filled with purple and yellow blooms that Ben doesn’t know the names of. There’s a ribbon wrapped around the waist of the vase, something thick and almost gaudy. Adrienne notices his staring when she flicks her dark eyes up from the papers. “They are from a boutique a few doors down. We mentioned we had filled our apartment and she wished to send her welcomings. I believe there is a card attached. Somewhere.” 

It should be a sweet gesture, something innocuous and kind. Welcome to the neighborhood, welcome to the town, etcetera etcetera. But Ben can’t exactly help the needling fear that prods under his skin. He has to check the name. He has to check who sent them, he has to make sure. 

Doctor Sackett said it was a normal response to what happened. A subform of needing to control his environment was needing to know was needing to know who interacted with it. Which meant he needed to know who sent him the damn flowers, who knows he’s here. Who here knows his name, has seen his face, can answer questions of some smart, charming, man came around to ask questions. 

His leg starts bouncing without his permission, but he can’t exactly stop it. “I’ll make sure to send my thank yous,” he says, belatedly. Adrienne deems them done and departs soon after, making sure to point out, once again, which key was for what before leaving. 

Ben waits a few seconds after she goes before springing up from the seat and locking the front door. The low click almost soothes his constantly rabbit-pace heartbeat. Almost. He needs another lock for it, probably one of those swing bar locks you see in hotels. 

You can never be too safe. 

The window in the kitchen had been opened, so Ben quickly pulls it shut and flips the latch to lock it. He makes a note to get some curtains for it. The other two windows in the living area have blinds, which Ben pulls down as soon as he can. He almost feels okay, now. Almost. He feels better than he ever did in New Haven or Setauket, though. The logical part of his brain tells him that this time, this time there’s no finding him. This time he covered his tracks. This time, he abandoned his plans to stay with Nathan in California, he didn’t tell anyone he was headed here until he’d already spent three nights in a Motel Six off the freeway.

He didn’t rent a car, he didn’t leave a forwarding address with his last apartment. 

He called Nathan from the motel, six hours before his flight was supposed to depart out of Hartsfield, and told him.

_ “Are you sure?”  _ He’d asked, that thick vein of worry constantly present. Ben told him he was positive.  _ “Ben, he’ll never come all the way to California for you. You know that, right?”  _

_ “Better safe than sorry, right?”  _ He’d replied, in lieu of his real answer. Because his real answer was no. No, he didn’t know for sure, he can’t know for sure. Because everyone said all those things already and one by one, they were all proven wrong. 

Ben locks the last window and empties his smallest bag on the bare mattress. It wasn’t there when he toured the apartment, but the Lafayette’s insisted it was new and they’d only recently had it sent in to complete the furnishing. He doesn’t care if they were lying. Ziplock bags of toiletries tumble onto it with a bounce, and Ben starts to rifle through them. 

Everyone said he wouldn’t follow him when Ben moved out of his house to a new apartment. 

Everyone said he wouldn’t go to Ben’s parents house to find him.

Everyone said he wouldn’t show up on Caleb’s doorstep with a box of chocolates and those baby-blue eyes. 

Everyone said he wouldn’t, everyone said he couldn’t. But he did, he always did.

He finds the bottles rattling around under the bag holding his contact solution and shampoo. A nest of orange tubes, he barely glances at labels as he snatches them up to find the right one. He shakes out two Klonopin and throws them back with nothing more than a grimace. He only notices after that his hands are shaking.

There’s glasses in the kitchen cabinet. Ben makes his way out there slowly, the low darkness more comforting than the harsh daylight by miles. He fills a glass from the tap and downs it in just a few chugs, only sucking in a couple harsh, panicked, breaths before dipping it back under the faucet again.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spots the arrangement. Sure enough, now that he’s closer, he can see the edge of off-white cardstock peeking out from under the ribbon. He nudges it free and looks it over. 

_ Welcome to Honeysuckle Ridge! _ __  
_  
_ __ \-- Kitty Livingstone, Kitty’s Fancy Flowers

Ben flips it over to find a blank back, and reads the front three more times. It’s from that incredibly creatively named flower shop down the road, just like Adrienne said. A wave of exhaustion washes over him and saps all the energy from his body. 

He puts it down and abandons the rest of his water to retreat back to the bed. He doesn’t bother being careful as he swipes the bags and pill bottles onto the floor. He just wants to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Gilbert shows up at his door after noon the next day, about fifteen minutes after Ben actually woke up. He talks wildly, long limbs gesticulating with a sort of careless abandon. He goes on about the town, its rich history he studied once he moved here from France.  _ “Well, first from France to New York, as you do. Then from New York to Washington, D.C. that is, the to California and back to New York--really, we have only been here for six years this December, but it is such a wonderful place is it not?”  _

Idly, Ben thinks that if this were five years ago he’d probably find Gilbert remarkably attractive. Lean and fit with a handsome face and sharp, sparkling eyes. He’s the kind of man who’s drooling with that dorky charm that Ben used to find incredibly appealing, the kind that would make him follow at their heels. It’s a curious thought, the kind that needles through unexpectedly and makes Ben shake it out before it festers. 

He doesn’t want to think about it, doesn’t want to think about the inevitability of drawing comparisons between what he used to want and what he had. 

Gilbert makes himself right at home at Ben’s table while Ben excuses himself to put on a shirt he wasn’t wearing yesterday and wrangle his hair into some semblance of order. 

“Working on unpacking, yes?” Gilbert asks as soon as he’s back. “It is the worst part of moving. Packing and unpacking, were I a man of endless wealth and less sentimentality, I would just donate all my things every time I was forced to leave. Buy them afresh.” 

Ben hums, playing kind host enough to refill Gilbert's glass of water. “I didn’t bring much, actually. Just some clothes.”

“Moving quickly, yes? You said you were from Connecticut, that is a far travel.” He’s peering over the top of his glass, like he’s trying to work something out but he doesn’t know what yet. 

Ben shifts, distinctly uncomfortable, and brings up a shoulder in a shrug. “I guess I just needed a change. I didn’t pick Honeysuckle Ridge specifically, I followed your ad for the apartment.”

He raises his glass in a mock salute. “And we are glad you did. Ah! I almost forgotten why I came in the first place. You have the cafe’s number, but not mine. Should something go wrong, or you require assistance, please,” he talks while he wiggles a business card out of the pocket of some obnoxiously tight jeans, “do call. Do you have a pen? I will leave you Addi’s number as well.” 

Ben finds one and Gilbert scribbles it down on his way out. 

Socialized out for the afternoon, Ben doesn’t do much shopping or unpacking. 

Or the next day, since he manages to find himself laying in bed, in the sweats and t-shirt that constitute his pajamas all fucking day. He tells himself he can unpack tomorrow as he shuffles down a couple streets to the closest gas station around two in the morning, filling his arms with cellophane-wrapped danishes and muffins, bottles of water, a couple Red Bull cans, and a bag of chips. The attendant looks him up and down before starting to scan. 

“Passin’ through?” He asks, as if Ben looks like he’s up for a conversation right now. 

“Just moved here, actually.” Ben does the math in his head and peels a couple bills from his wallet.

The guy huffs a little, sounding almost displeased. “Sorry, we get lots of folks stoppin’ by. We’re not far off the interstate.”

Ben says: “Yeah.” And the conversation ends. He dumps his change in the penny jar and pockets the couple bills he gets back before bundling up his bags. And hurrying out. 

Night is better. The cover of darkness sits almost like a shroud and the absence of people out makes Ben more at ease. Dr. Sackett told him that some days would be worse, but that he just needed to convince himself that it was okay. No one was following him now, no one was watching him from around the corners. Dr. Sackett told him to examine the evidence around him,  _ use that logical Yale mind, Benjamin.  _ The evidence told him that he wasn’t being followed, that he wasn’t being watched. Logically, he knows no one is here. 

There’s no logical series of events that could point to him following Ben to the middle of nowhere-ville Virginia. 

Ben crinkles his nose as he stuffs his key in the lock, plastic bag rustling far too noisely in the otherwise silent night. Him. He won’t even say his name, he won’t even  _ think  _ his name. It was always a problem in therapy, Sackett would tap his pen against his notepad and stare Ben down over the tops of those wire-rimmed glasses. 

_ “Who’s him,”  _ he’d ask, as if he didn’t know. As if he didn’t hear about every police report Ben filed. But Ben hated saying his name, like just breathing it out would invoke his presence and call that blue-eyed broad-shouldered ghost back from the darkness that Ben keeps trying to vanish him to. 

He locks the door to the stairwell, and the door to his apartment. God, Ben hates coming home. He hates that momentary fear thinking that maybe, maybe someone was in here while he was gone. This useless paranoia suggesting that he’s snuck in and hidden himself in the closest, in the darkness, in all the corners that Ben can’t see. He tries to swallow down his fears, set the bag of cheap food and even cheaper energy drinks on the counter.

Ben flicks the lights on and makes noise himself putting things away. The sound, the clang of cans on countertops and drawers shutting too sharply is almost comforting in the otherwise abject silence. He locked the doors, he tells himself. He locked the windows. 

There is no one in his apartment. Of course there’s no one. Ben shoves a danish on a napkin and throws it in the microwave for fifteen seconds. No one. He takes a bite out of the too-hot pastry and pads his way back into his fully-lit apartment. 

There are no shadows to hide in. He sits on the edge of the bed, eyeing up the lines of pill bottles he finally put upright that morning. They sit there, like half-matching little soldiers, labels turned out so he has a hint of what he’s taking. He barely even remembers what he’s supposed to be taking when anymore. He’s got prescriptions for practically every anxiety medication under the sun. Try this when it’s bad, try this when it's really bad. Take this or that or that with this. He chases them with Red Bull when he decided halfway through that he doesn’t want to sleep, that sleeping is too dangerous. 

When you’re asleep, no one watches your entry points. No one takes screenshots of the texts and missed calls, no one is watching your back. 

The can hisses under his hand as he opens it, setting the rest of the box down on the pile of clothes he’s been picking through. Ben finds himself staring through his apartment, at the firmly locked door until the sun rises again. 

He forces himself to shower and put his toiletry bag at least in the bathroom, even if he doesn’t do much to unpack it and has to get out of the shower to grab something from it at least three separate times. 

Exhaustion hits somewhere around noon, but he chases it away with another cup of coffee and a fist-full of white cheddar popcorn straight from the bag. Shopping is out of the question for the day, no matter how much Ben tried to convince himself that it would happen today, it just is not going to happen. So he focuses what little energy he can spare on unpacking, hanging his meager collection of clothing in the tiny closet and dumping the mix of socks and underwear into one of those little two-drawer dressers that hunches down at the bottom. He slides the door shut after finally kicking the now-empty duffel in. 

Fuck, he really didn’t bring much. Already, in just his third day of actually living in the apartment, he had to start thinking about where the nearest laundromat was. Gilbert said something about it, but it’s lost in a distant fog where Ben knows he was supposed to be paying attention but he was too busy thinking about people he’s not supposed to be thinking about. 

Well, a person. A person he’s not supposed to be thinking about. As if thinking makes it real. 

Ben checks the calendar on his phone, ignoring the seventeen unread text messages, and makes a mental note that apparently he’s supposed to be meeting Gilbert and Adrienne downstairs tomorrow morning. Tomorrow morning? Ben peers out the window, shifting the tightly-drawn shades to make sure it was still sunlight before checking the time again. Barely four in the afternoon. It seemed like both less and more time at once, like Ben had only just moved in, like Ben had been living here a little too long, sleeping on a bare mattress for weeks now.

But it’s just been a few days instead. He feels too fuzzy and too distant to consider taking his medication, so instead he picks at the tab of another energy drink and downs it as fast as he can. His heart rattles around uncomfortably in his chest. Bussing tables and taking food meant a lot of talking to people, a lot of exposure, a lot of introducing himself. 

Maybe he should’ve given a fake name, he thinks for a solid four seconds, as if the background and credit checks wouldn’t have thrown that option right out the fucking window. Scowling, Ben shovels another fistful of cheap junk food into his mouth. Fuck, he feels disgusting. Wiping his hand on his jeans, Ben plucks up his phone again, this time hovering his thumb over the Messages icon, it’s little red bubble telling him how many things he’s been ignoring. Right to it’s immediate left, the phone icon tells him he’s also missed eight calls since he last cleared them.

He knows one is him. He used to have his number blocked, but there was something about not knowing that was worse. Something about not knowing when he texted Ben, when he tried to call him, what he was trying to say. He had to know, because if he didn’t know how else was he going to get a heads up? Without knowing, how was Ben supposed to read the line of pseudo-loving threats topped off with heart emoji’s and sad little  _ I love you _ ’s? 

Ignorance was not fucking bliss, it was a goddamn nightmare. 

The rabbit pace of his heart took off running and it had nowhere to go. He clicked his phone off and dropped it back onto the bed. He means to move, to take a step forward and do something productive with this newfound anxiety-laden energy, but instead Ben just collapses back down onto the bed, a raw sort of fear overtaking him again. 

He does what he’s done for three days now, he buries his head in his hands and waits until tomorrow.

But tomorrow doesn’t bring him any better tidings. Tomorrow instead hails in an early rise, alarm blaring uselessly at a man who’s already been awake for the better part of the last hour. Another nightmare. He blinks up at the ceiling, letting the sound pierce him and grate him and remind him that he’s alive. 

If he’s annoyed, he’s still alive. He smacks the damn thing off after it beeps a good three minutes past it’s alarm time. 5:48am. The cafe opens at seven, and Ben’s slated for his first orientation at six-thirty. He slithers off the bed and into the bathroom, grimacing at the brightness of the lights before slinking into the shower. He simmers there for a couple minutes, trying to remind himself why he did this. Why he came out here. 

He doesn’t know if it’s helping or not yet. Well, so far it’s not. So far he feels just as shitty as he did in New Haven or Setauket. Maybe even moreso, considering now he doesn’t have as much of an excuse to break down into a paranoid mess every goddamn night. His fingers are wrinkly by the time he squeaks off the spray and towel-drys as much of him as he gives a fuck to before wiggling into the best work clothes he could muster.

Gilbert told him anything was fine, they didn’t have much for a strict dress code here. His best jeans and a shirt without any stains would do. So that’s what he wore. Brushing his teeth, downing the rest of his sludgy coffee, and shaving only puts him to ten minutes before he needs to leave. So he does the best thing he can think of doing in the moment.

He sits there, at the cramped little kitchen table, and he thinks. 

Thinking has, of late, been his enemy. But in the same way that not thinking has become one too. Not thinking lead him here, not just to Honeysuckle Ridge but also to this whole fucking situation. If he’d been thinking five goddamn years ago he wouldn’t have dated someone twenty years older than him, he wouldn’t have gotten so lost in those blue eyes and broad shoulders and big hands. If he’d been thinking two and a half years after that, he wouldn’t have moved into his nice, big, house. He wouldn’t have been so fucking stupid as to miss all the signs that everyone else was trying to point out to him. 

He wouldn’t have quit his job for him, he wouldn’t have done a goddamn thing for him. 

Dr. Sackett’s voice rattles around in his head. It reminds him that that isn’t productive thinking.  _ You’re a victim, Ben,  _ he says, all innocent eyes and soft voice in his aggravatingly dimly lit office. His lip curls in response. 

This is why he shouldn’t be thinking. Ben scowls into the bottom of his cup before dumping it in the sink to deal with later. He double-checks the windows and locks the door tight before he leaves. He’s almost exactly a minute early by the time he hits the entrance to the cafe. Adrienne gives him a wave from the counter where she’s scribbling some numbers down. 

“You are here,” she says, a little unnecessarily consider Ben knows he’s here. “Gilbert is in the back finishing some breads. I will give you the tour.”

It isn’t much for a tour, considering the entire store is about the size of his apartment. The back is a little bigger, of course, enough to house the kitchen part of the cafe, but the front isn’t much. But Adrienne gives just as in-depth a tour downstairs as she did up. 

From the entrance, directly ahead is the counter, a chalkboard menu listing items and prices hanging above it. There’s a printed and laminated version stuck to the counter as well, with a few additions and changes sharpied out and corrected with taped on papers. Taking up a good portion of the counter is the displays as well, showing off some fresh-baked pastries that Gilbert darts out to fill less than five minutes into the tour.

“We’re running behind,” she says, “normally we are in much earlier, but we had a distraction this morning.” 

The way she shoots a wary glance towards the gently swinging door that her husband disappeared behind makes Ben want to ask exactly no more questions. There are four tables with four chairs lined up in the far left of the shop, along a large window wall that makes Ben very uncomfortable to be standing by it. But he can deal. He’ll deal. Once the shop is full of people there’ll be no picking him out of the crowd from the outside.

Picking him out of the crowd from the inside, however, really is a different story. Ben pinches a frown, but Adrienne doesn’t seem to notice all too much. She points out those tables as the most popular ones, there are a few more scattered around the front of the store and a few displays that he’d need to tidy up as the day went on.

“We get mostly tourists and travelers,” she says. “Passing through town on their way to the mountains, or just coming in off the road to stay at a hotel or find dinner. So we sell things from town here too, try to spark interest for them to visit others."

Ben does a once-over of some of the little tables. They’re all mostly full still, some dusty-looking jewelry sitting in bowls, some local art hanging off the walls, some other kitschy-looking souvenirs that mothers can snatch up and say was from this little place of no-where, or that girls in their twenties can savor to remember some “wild” trip they took. 

The only one that was almost picked clean looked like the whole table was once filled with honey. Ben picks up a jar on a whim.  _ The Honey Shop  _ was printed across the top in a clear and easy to read font. The cartoon of a bee under it was the only thing that stopped the label from being as to-the-point as any jar of local honey could be. It listed everything someone might need to know.

_ The Honey Shop _ __   
_ Raw Organic Honey _ __   
_ Clover Honey _ _   
_ __ Harvested Locally in Honeysuckle Ridge, VA

Ben rolled it over in his hand. On the back was the shop number and the address. Ben hummed and set it down. The honey shared a display with a few bars of soap, each wrapped in a paper print that bore the same shop name as the honey did. 

Adrienne lets him poke, having already concluded the tour over, before saying, “That honey is what we have at our station for fixing drinks. It is the only honey we use here.”

“Must be good,” Ben comments, if only because he hasn’t said anything this entire time. His new job probably requires him to be social.

Might as well get used to it.

“A friend makes it. He also provides us with our most popular pie to sell, as he refuses to release the recipe. Wait here, actually, I have your first duty for you.” She disappears into the back and Ben stays put. Just like he’s told. The sun is just on the cusp of rising and according to his watch, they open in about five minutes, which is a little disconcerting considering he still doesn’t actually know where the sink in this joint is, and he’s pretty sure part of bussing means bringing the dishes somewhere. 

Adrienne doesn’t resurface, instead she apparently delegates it to Gilbert, who waves a heavy-looking envelope and a folded piece of paper. “Your attention has drawn our attention to the fact that we are very nearly out of honey,” he announces with a flourish, handing the list of Ben. He takes it, after Gilbert wiggles it in his direction a second time. Ben glances down to the table. Really, he doesn’t think he had to be the one to tell him their stock is almost depleted. 

Whatever the sign that names the price of “SW Honey” is trying to advertise is gone, and they’re down to just a couple jars of the other one. Clover, if Ben remembers right. 

He gets his assignment and almost freezes then and there. Go down the street and give this list to the man behind the counter in the shop. Down the street. 

Like.

Outside. Ben wouldn’t have had an issue with this five years ago, in fact he wouldn’t have had an issue with this a year and a half ago. But it isn’t a year and a half ago and he’s having a minor issue with this. A minor issue that Gilbert thinks he can solve with a shake of his head. “Ah! My mistake, you are confused where to go, no?”

No, no he’s not confused. He’s fairly certain he can find it on the little stretch of road. Ben’s heart is seizing in his chest at the idea of the exposure that comes with walking down main street. Even if it’s a sleepy town and a sleepy morning, it just means that his presence is more noted. A stranger here where strangers don’t stay. Especially not alone. Ben chews his lip, letting Gilbert’s detailed directions float around his head like some latent mist. 

It’s not the kind of thing he can say no to, not when he needs the job, not when he needs the money. Because losing the job means losing the money means losing the apartment. It means losing this one tenuous connection to the concept of safety. Ben swallows a lump of fear and lets the paper dent and bend in the iron grip of his sweaty fingers. 

“Four storefronts down on the other side of the street,” he echoes, feeling the vomit already surging up in his throat. “Got it.” 

The bell dings as he makes his retreat out the front door, the air suffocatingly hot in the early morning haze, and steps into the daylight.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben meets George and his past reminds him of its existence once again.

Doctor Sackett was always on Ben for quarantining himself, for subsisting on an alternating diet of pizza and chinese or whatever delivery was having a sale instead of actually daring to face the outside world to go grocery shopping. Every session he’d ask Ben where he went, if he saw signs of his ex-boyfriend in the walk from his door to his car then from his car to the office and back again. Occasionally even at the one corner store somewhere around three in the morning.

The answer was often no, and Sackett would set his pen down and ask: “So why don’t we try to go somewhere new this week? Maybe a walk around the park? Some fresh air would do you good, Benjamin, I promise.” 

Ben muses over that as he checks the shop name on the storefront to the one at the top of the list. This is the most he’s been outside in months. Maybe Sackett was wrong, because Ben only feels twitchier and more anxious than ever, like the sun and the daylight themselves are magnifying glasses pointing him out and isolating him for identification. The cold confines of his apartment were safer, with the windows drawn and locked and the doors deadbolted. 

Outside is a gamble, a risk, something he can’t control and he hates it. So he hurries down the scorching road, ignoring the glances from locals or tourists until he finds the swinging sign that reads, in neat and plain letters: Honey Shop. He assumes that this is the right place, based entirely on the name alone and checks his crinkled list one more time before yanking open the flyer-laden door.

The bell jangles his arrival to the otherwise empty shop.

The place is small, maybe half the size of the cafe, but the space is absolutely stuffed with displays and tables. The only window is the front facing shop one, which is obscured on one half by a bookshelf holding uniform jars of honey and on the other side by a table that is stacked tall with beeswax candles. What little area left is obscured with painted on information and sales, tinting the faint trickle of light to a reddish orange. The only other source of light is a dim little overhang, casting it all in a sort of warm glow. It’s cooler than it was outside as well, with a small but powerful fan whirring away from the top of a shelf.

Ben’s heart, for the first time in a very long time, steadies itself out. 

It's impossible to walk around the shop without risking checking his hip into another display, a stack of soap or honey or candle or something else topped off with a laminated sign decorated with the same cartoon bee, but Ben gives it his best, clutching both list and envelope tightly. The whole setup is soothing, in a cluttered sort of way and it takes Ben a solid thirty seconds of poking around to actually find the counter and behind it a door where Ben only assume leads to the back of the shop. The counter has piles of open jars, seemingly ready for samples and a single dented register among the mugs full of honey sticks and candy and business cards. 

On the far end is a sign stuck to a half empty jar, “He's friendly, take one,” it promises, with an arrow pointing down away from the counter. Ben peers around one of the piles of soap, and sure enough right in that path of the arrow is a furry lump. It’s not until Ben dips his fingers into the jar, coming up with a bone-shaped biscuit, that head peels itself away. 

Two watery, sleepy, eyes blink expectantly at him, and Ben’s half a second from crouching down to give the little shop dog the treat when a deep, low, voice cuts through the otherwise quiet. “Can I help you?”

Ben recoils so hard, scrambling back a couple feet, that the crumbly little treat lands hard on the rug beneath him. Jerks his head towards the sound, he finds the once-empty doorway now filled with a bulking frame of a man. His heart finds itself at home once again high in his throat, awash in bile and anxiety. 

His lips part but he doesn’t have a single thing to say, not even as the dog heaves itself up and meanders over to vacuum up the mess Ben just made. 

But the man, just raises two hands a peaceful sort of gesture. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I was in the back finishing bottling a new batch of honey when I heard you come in. I would’ve come out right away but I didn’t want it to crystallize.” 

Yeah, Ben’s heart is still pounding but it isn’t the dizzying head-rush sort of anxiety that accompanies him whenever he dares to step outside his apartment, or when he hears a stick break outside his window. It’s sharper, in a way, but it doesn’t last. Ben shakes his head, and his heart keeps thudding way, too hard, but not as hard as it was before. “You uh, yeah. Sorry you scared me.”

“Don’t be, it’s my fault. I’ve been told I have a deceptively light step for a man of well,” he gestures to himself, “my stature.” 

The dog, now close enough that Ben can feel the hot panting of his breath against his leg, sits and stares up at him. The man acknowledges the dog with the tilt of his head. “That’s Sweets, short for Sweet Lips. He used to be a very talented American Foxhound, now he’s just an old man. Harmless, as you can tell. And I’m George, George Washington.” 

Ben waves, and gives the dog a soft little head pat. “I’m uh. Ben.” He doesn’t need any more information than that, just one other person in this tiny ass town knowing his last name, knowing how to look him up and how to find him was enough. Ben would do, there are hundreds of thousands of Benjamin’s in the world. 

The less people who know anything about him, the better. The safer. “I just came from Lafayette’s cafe, uh, Mr. Lafayette sent me.” 

That drew a quick of this guy, George, Ben corrects himself, George’s brow. “Mr. Lafayette?” He says it like he’s never heard it before and Ben feels his cheeks going from ghost-white to flame-red in an instant. “He didn’t tell you to call him that, did he?”

Ben shakes his head, actually he insisted on being called Gilbert, or just Lafayette if Ben was going to be insistent about formalities. Which, Ben was. There was no telling when he would be found again, when he would need to pack up and leave again. No telling just what was going to go wrong. If he would be found, when he would have to go. No use making friends here, no use planting real roots. 

It was all temporary. Everything was temporary now. Ben wasn’t allowed to have anything permanent, not allowed to have anything lasting in his life anymore. It was all uprooted and ruined and messy now. Like saplings after windstorms. 

Ben felt the silence go on too long and cleared his throat. “I’ve got a list,” he says, handing it and the envelope over a little forcefully, “from them. They said it wasn’t anything unusual.” 

He’d read it enough times on the walk over, just to give his eyes something to do that wasn’t roaming constantly for warning signs. Or give his mind something to do other than worry about when his life would come collapsing down again. Two cases of Sourwood Honey, one case of Clover Honey, a case of whatever’s new. Two boxes of soap and three pies. 

George takes it, seemingly undisturbed by how it’s almost damp now by how hard Ben’s been clutching it in his clammy palms. He gives it a once over and gestures for Ben to follow him.

The back of the shop is a little more open than the front. There’s a stove in the back with a few pots and a case of filled and labeled jars, a table with more boxes of honey. A couple massive metal cabinets fill a considerable amount of the rest of the space. They’re labeled with a swooping handwriting sharpied on over a couple layers of masking tape. One says  _ Honey,  _ the other:  _ Soap.  _

“Wait here,” George says, parking Ben between a sink and a metal table that, somehow, isn’t filled with stuff. He swings open the door to the honey cabinet and heaves two crates across the little space, setting them down with a ringing thud, and then goes back, looking through before wiggling some boxes out. 

Ben watches, until there’s a good-sized stack of boxes beside him and he’s suddenly entirely unsure of how he’s gonna haul all that shit back to the cafe. George clears his throat. “And the pies are in the office in the fridge.”

Belatedly, as George fetches those from an office that looks hardly bigger than a broom closet, Ben notes that he never actually counted the money in the envelope. He acquiesces this with the fact that it seemed like they’ve known each other for a while, and then maybe George trusts them enough. Adrienne did call him a friend.

But then again, he thinks with an icy clutch of fear, that means they probably talk. And if they talk, then soon George might talk to other people and if George talks to other people than the whole goddamn town knows he’s here and it isn’t long before his ex-boyfriend does too and he can’t have that. Not so soon, now when he blew everything and took a wild, wayward, chance to get here. 

This is the only place he can be safe, where only Caleb and Nate know he is and no one else. Especially not him. He closes his eyes and takes two long, deep, breathes. When he opens them again, George is standing, wielding three boxes tied together, in front of him. There’s a look that crosses his face, but it’s too fast and Ben’s too wired up on anxiety to really catch it. 

He holds the bundle of what Ben assumes to be pies up and says, “You’re probably going to need some help carrying this.”

All Ben can think to say, around the rising and twisting bile is: “Yeah.”

He figures George would call somebody, maybe ring up Gilbert and send him down, but instead he just points down to where Sweet Lips is lingering in the doorway and tells him, “Be good, make sure nobody steals.” Sweet Lips responds by laying back down into the same sort of brown lump he was before. George heaves three of the honey boxes into his own arms with a grunt, leaving Ben with only the last two (which is already unreasonably fucking heavy), and the lighter soap and pies. 

Ben gets the door for him and he grimaces a sort of thank you. “You sure you don’t want me to carry another one?” Ben asks, knowing he’d never actually get there if he did.

But George just puffs out, “Nonsense. I’m used to carrying more farther.” Ben scowls and follows behind him, the sun glaring off some shop window and making him turn his head towards George more pointedly to avoid it. George walks on the street side of the sidewalk, and Ben almost wishes he could thank him for serving as this literal human shield without explaining all the baggage that came with it. 

The walk is, mercifully, short, and George drops the crates right inside the open door, grunting as he straightens out. There’s a few people already there, chatting to Adrienne as she refills their coffee. Ben drops his own right beside the others, sweat dripping down his temples and soaking into the collar of his shirt. He pulls at the front a few times, just to get a little bit of air to cool himself off. 

Adrienne peels herself away from the table, making her way over while Gilbert vanishes into the back once a timer on his watch buzzes from across the room. “Is this all of it,” she asks, heaving one of the boxes up onto the now-cleared off display table. 

George nods, face flushed from the exertion and heat. “One trip, now that I’ve got someone who can lift more than three jars at a time.” He inclines his head to Ben, who feels himself begin to get a second wave of that heat. Must be exhaustion, he thinks, or the adrenaline burning off to remind himself that it's fucking hot in here. 

“It’s not that heavy,” Ben mutters, wiping his sweaty palms on his shorts before politely exchanging goodbyes with George and hurrying back to work. The calmness of that cramped little store follows him in the back of his mind as he busses tables and whisks drinks from the counter to the tables for a few more hours. 

Gilbert sends him off after the lunch rush dies down, pressing a cheese croissant and a slice of pie into his hands and declaring Ben’s first day a rousing success. His heart is still slamming away in his throat by the time he makes it upstairs, dropping both things on the counter and doing his usual lock-check before showing off the grime of the day.

It’s only once he’s under the spray that it catches up with him. His feet ache, his arms throb, his chest just hurts. He downs two more of his pills and sticks a note to the top reminding himself to shove some in his pockets tomorrow before he goes down. Otherwise he’ll spend another fifteen minute break in the bathroom choking down panicked breaths because he saw a flash of blue eyes and deep hair out of the corner of his eyes. 

Ben closes his eyes and tilts his face up to the shower spray. It’s fine, he tells himself. Tourists had filtered through all day, but none of them from New York, none of them knew him. They barely looked up to see his face when he brought them their drinks or food or whatever. 

They just tilted cups in his direction and muttered empty,  _ thanks,  _ when he took them away or refilled them. 

No one sees him here, but it’s not quite good enough. It’s not quite as soothing as those enclosing four walls with one window and no corners to hide in. He closes his eyes once he shuts off the water and drinks in the memory of what it was like to be just a little more at ease, to think for just a second there was no reason to be afraid. 

He sighs as he opens them again, exhaustion slamming into him. It’s barely four in the afternoon, but he takes the lunch so thoughtfully provided to him and tears a piece off to eat as he makes his way back into the kitchen for his phone, then back through to the back of the apartment to curl up in his bed.

His heart is racing again as he hovers his thumb over the messenger app. 

It’s okay, he tells himself. It’s okay.

He presses it, letting it load the missed messages. 

Five from Caleb asking him if plans on picking up the things he left in his apartment ( _ No rush,  _ he says,  _ Just wanna know if you want me to put them in the closet so they don’t get covered in dog fur.)  _

A handful from Anna, some from Nate, asking him to call.

The most recent message was from that afternoon, just a few hours ago.

John Andre - 2:43pm:  _ I sent flowers but the company said you didn’t live there anymore, I stopped by and that seems true. This isn’t cute anymore, Benjamin, the longer you keep playing games the more you’ll regret it when you finally come home. I love you. -- John _

Ben turns his phone back off again and sets the food on his bedside table, no longer hungry. He hurts down to his bones, but he pushes himself up and checks the locks again. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BOOM we now know the Mystery Ex.  
> It's not Benedict because Benedict actually has an important role later~
> 
> Also: Enter => Honey Man
> 
> HMU on [tumblr](tooeasilyconsidered.tumblr.com)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New Tags have been Added  
> Also this will use the Hamilton Cast version of Lafayette, and later Hamilton and John Laurens and other, to be added, cast members.

Ben’s tempted to call in sick the next morning, on his second day of work. Or, in reality, he’s more tempted to just quit and stay in bed until those three months are up and maybe by then the cool shadow of darkness would just take him over, leave him feeling as numb and lifeless as he already does.

Only without all that pain.

But that cocktail of fear hits him perfectly at once and he drags himself out of bed, feeling the latent hangover of terror from the night before.

“Dumbass,” he tells the tile in his shower. “Why the fuck did you read it? You knew it would--” He cuts himself off with a sigh as he digs his fingers into the mouth of the shampoo bottle, desperate to come with with at least enough to get him through today. Because today is all he has to get himself through.

Today and, well, maybe tomorrow too. Because he’s not sure he can handle a walk or a cab out to the local Wal-Mart without collapsing into agonizing fear or breaking down or _something._ All because he was too fucking weak to not ignore a text from John. He didn’t text him back, god no, no the thought of contacting him, the thought of talking to him made his stomach twist up into bile-filled knots and if he’d actually eaten anything last night, he probably would’ve been forced to pull back the shower curtain and fucking hurl.

He tilts his face up into the spray and wishes for a second, John had killed him that night.

At least then, people would believe the stories he tries to tell them.

At least then, he wouldn’t have to be here. He wouldn’t have to drag himself out of the shower and towel himself down. He wouldn’t have to pluck through the pile of clothes that still sits in lumps on his floor.

But that line of thinking isn’t productive. He’d confessed it, once, to Sackett and braced himself for the trap doors to swing out from under him, waited for Sackett to call in calvary and heave him away. But he didn’t. He’d taken off those circular glasses of his, rubbed his eyes and told Ben that that wasn’t exactly a-typical.

But that it wasn’t good either.

Their session ended early, but god Ben felt rawer than ever.

A lot like he does now, head hanging between his knees as he sits, half-dressed, on the edge of his bed. Everything hurts, his head, his chest, his limbs. It’s a sort of bone-deep exhaustion that weighs on him, that pushes him back down into bed when he knows, for certain, that he should get up and move.

It’s only the insisting blinking of the clock the tells him to finish getting dressed. Only the knowledge that he’d be absolutely fired if he doesn’t pull on his shirt. His hand hovers over his phone, blinking the alert that he has new text messages from the night before.

Two. Both from John. He doesn’t need to open them to know what they say. _I’m sorry, my love,_ would be one of them. _I overreacted last night. I just love you so much, I miss you too much it hurts me. Please come home, baby._

The last one was always the same, no matter what. _It won’t be like last time, I promise._

He flips it face down and locks the door twice before he leaves. Work drags on a little bit longer than Ben feels like it should. He spends half his time re-wiping down tables or refilling the coffee of the two people who’ve lingered there with their books or their laptops. He tries not to think about the wide windows on the side of the building, tries not to think about how, when he takes the trash out, how exposed he is.

But it doesn’t work.

John knows he’s gone, which means John’s onto his second step: finding out where Ben took off to. He knows he’ll have messages from Caleb and Anna and his parents in the next week as John runs down the usual suspects. He almost wants to send him something, anything at all, just to avoid the bitterness of what Ben knows might just happen next.

He’s never done what he’s threatened to, at least, not some of what he’s threatened too. Like there’s lengths that even John won’t cross, maybe because he’s a little afraid of the backlash that comes with doing it. Or maybe he knows that just the threat of it is enough to make Ben yield. A fact which is gut-twistingly embarrassing.

It worked before, but Ben isn’t entirely sure how well it would work this time. He doesn’t muse on it too long, not with the lingering knowledge that a breakdown at his place of employment would probably raise a few questions.

The bell above the door jingles the arrival of another customer and Ben immediately cranes his head up from where he’s ruthlessly scrubbing at a sticky smear of honey on a table. He does a triple-take. It’s not John in the doorway, of course, but George. He’s not heaving any crates or boxes with him, so Ben doesn’t actually have a clue _why_ he’s there.

He only realizes he’s staring when George gives him a short wave and an acknowledging nod. And Ben snaps out of it. He waves back and remembers that part of his job is actually to great customers. Right.

He should probably do that. But his mouth feels kinda dry and he’s already too strung out from last night and Adrienne beats him to it. “You’re late, _mon cherie._ Gilbert was so distraught thinking you stood him up.”

“So distraught he’s hiding in the kitchen making cranberry orange scones, I hope,” George shoots back, quick and easy and Ben finds himself slinking back before he can think. He presses his lips together thinly and focusing back on the honey smear. He’s almost got it half-way off.

Across the cafe, Adrienne laughs that sweet bell-chime laugh that Ben’s starting to get incredibly familiar with. “Do you think he would allow you to suffer? A fresh batch from this morning, go sit, sit, I’ll bring you your usual, yes?”

Ben doesn’t look up, he doesn't _want_ to look up. He doesn’t want to see George’s eyes sparkle with just that touch of entertainment like they did yesterday, except instead of being directed down at Ben or at that dog in the shop, it’s at his friends. So he focuses down instead, dragging his cloth along the ridge of a scratch, probably made by some bored kid with their parents keys or something.

He only looks up when a shadow falls over half the table. “Between you and me,” George says, with just an edge of humor to his voice, “this one looks pretty clean. Do you mind?” He gestures and Ben steps back, matching George’s movement.

“No, go ahead. Sorry, I guess I’m a little stuck in my head. Can I, uh, can I get you anything?”

George shakes his head, folding his hands over the top of the table in a way that almost reminds Ben of Dr. Sackett. ”No thank you, I’ve a standing brunch with Gilbert. Once a week, it's the one way to ensure that he takes a break. Granted, it never usually lasts long.” George peers back towards the kitchen door as he sits, “he gets a overwhelmed pretty easily and tends to go back to finish something or another. Or bother Adrienne while she’s trying to make drinks.”

Ben hums and leaves him to it, scuttling away to find another table to hyper-focus on. George doesn’t linger long there alone though, as the door swings open as Gilbert slides in quickly and immediately falls backwards into the chair. Ben gives them a wide enough berth, making idle conversation about whatever with Adrienne or the few stragglers who make their way in for a late brunch from their motels.

It’s only an hour or so when it looks like Gilbert’s getting too antsy and he finally bows out, when he comes in. Tall and broad and with that darkened scowl striking across his face. He doesn’t look anything like John, no, it’s black hair and black eyes and the anger that rolls off him as he pins his phone to his shoulder. The anger is familiar though, as he hisses, quietly at first, into his phone.

But it moves in like a storm system, clouding up the otherwise sunny day and sending electric chills down Ben’s spine.

He doesn’t know why, he doesn’t _get_ why, but he’s frozen. He’s entirely frozen and this guy hasn’t said a goddamn thing yet. He rolls forward, barreling straight to the counter, trapped sighing behind a regular.

Ben watches it in slow motion, like a trainwreck or a fire or an open palm towards his face, and he knows what’s coming. He can recognize that build-up of rage and wrath and he instinctively shifts backwards on his toes. And then forward. He can’t let Adrienne take it, he’s sure she can but he can’t let her.

It’s like the rest of the world goes silent in the moment, Ben can feel his nails biting into his own palm, leaving perfect crescents in his skin, he can feel the skin of his knuckles stretching white over bone with the force of his clenching. His breath is cold and hard in his lungs, solid and condensed.

Seconds feel like hours and Ben waits for the inevitable.

_“Are you fucking stupid or something?”_

It’s loud enough that Ben can see, out of the corner of his eye, head snap in the man's direction. Like a thunderclap it draws immediate interest, shattering the otherwise peaceful atmosphere of the cafe. And Ben’s muscles lock, he wants to get involved, wants to say something, wants to tell this guy to take his phone call outside but he’s stuck. He’s frozen and locked and he can’t even breathe. He knows he’s staring, knows that’ll only make it worse (it only ever makes it worse) but looking away is impossible. He can’t tear himself from the scene, he can’t stop.

“I ask you to do one thing, one simple goddamn thing and you can’t even do that? Jesus, what is wrong with you?”

His brain screams out for him to move, to look away, to pretend like this isn’t happening but this tirade only seems to be beginning. Ben can’t actually hear the words, they all flow and mesh and mold together like he’s underwater or something, but he’s getting the gist of it. She’s stupid, she forgot to get something. She’s stupid. He’s stupid. Ben can only hear John’s voice in the snapping and shouting.

It echoes in the snapping and swearing, and it’s all Ben can hear, all he can taste is bile in the back of his throat. All he can see is the blurring haze of tears that come whenever he thinks about all the things John used to say and spit at him.

He doesn’t see George push himself up from the table, he doesn’t see George, tall and broad and stormy, cross the room. He only notices him when that low now half-familiar voice rumbles out a sharp and commanding, _“Hey!”_

And Ben’s attention snaps, forcibly, back to the side, where George’s arms are crossed over that barrel chest and his glare his heavy, but not at Ben. No, it’s directed strong over his shoulder, right down the center.

The douche on the phone pulls it away from his ear, “Mind your own fucking business, okay? This is a private conversation.”

George’s scowl turns to a sneer. “It’s not when you’re shouting, take it outside or hang up. This is a family establishment.”

The man hisses into the receiver again, “Just a second,” and presses it to his collar. “Listen _buddy_ , I’m just here to buy my fucking coffee and get back on the fucking road so fuck off, alright?” He grumbles under his breath and Ben almost whiplash going between the two.

“Get out.” It’s low and dangerous and biting. George says it again when the guy tries to say something else.

Then a third time.

The staring contest ends when, finally, the douche snarls something obscene at him and stalks his way back out, taking his wrath and rage and leaving Ben half-trembling in his wake. Adrienne sucks in a deep breath, one Ben can hear from his place beside the counter, and finishes ringing up the customers.

Ben clears nearly half a foot when the heavy hand comes down on his shoulder. His heart seals itself in his throat and he snaps his head back around so fast it makes the world tilt on its axis. The hand immediately slides off and George holds them up in surrender. “I didn’t mean to startle you, my mistake.” His voice pitches low, “you look a little shaken, if you don’t mind me saying.”

When Ben can’t find the words to refute that, George continues: “I don’t think Gilbert would mind if you and I got a little fresh air for a moment, you know. If you’d like to.”

The cafe is stifling, the eyes that are fixated on him, boring into him even if they’re not looking at him, and Ben nods and lets himself be led out through the back entrance, to the dirty pseudo-alley behind the building. It’s just around the corner to where Ben usually goes up to his apartment, close and familiar. It’s good. It’s better than when he’s usually outside, something about George’s shadow casting over him. Hiding him. Protecting him. He leans his back against the rough brick and sucks in a breath that hitches low in his lungs.

“Thank you,” he manages, after a moment or three.

George shrugs one shoulder. “He’s lucky he didn’t snap at you,” George says, after a few moments of deliberations. Ben waits for something after that, some sort of clarification.

The birds fill the silence.

Then he asks, finally: “Why? I wouldn’t’ve exactly done something about it.” It’s bitter, it’s far too honest. Ben backs it up, covering his trails meekly with: “Customer is always right, right? Can’t exactly yell at them when you’ve only been working there for a day.”

George makes a noise. Displeased, in some distant way, but Ben gets the distinct impression it’s not directed at him. Especially not in the way that George’s eyes fixate in the distance, where those black blots in the sky dive down to snatch bugs off the petals of wildflowers. “Adrienne and Gilbert are why I say he’s lucky he didn’t snap at you. They are,” another deliberate, contemplative, pause, “protective. Of those who are different here. They were the first people I befriended when I came.”

“Oh.” Ben sniffs, digging the toe of his sneakers into the dirt, “I just assumed you were from here.”

“I’m not. It’s...it’s a long story, one which I have little pride in. The Lafayette’s precede me, they took me in when it was clear that I was an outsider in a place not unfriendly to but...tentative of those. You could, perhaps, understand why they know the feeling of isolation in a small southern town.”

Ah. Ben could see it, and while he knows he couldn’t understand the depths of it, he still got it. He let the silence scream his understanding.

They sit there, in quiet, listening to the distant sounds of traffic and wind. George is the first to break it this time, his hands in his pockets and his face tilted up to the sky. “You’re safe with them, you know.”

He doesn’t really believe it when he says it, but Ben slowly nods anyway. “I know.”

“Let’s go back inside then, shall we? I’ve got a delivery to make to a very unpleasant man a few towns over later this afternoon, so I should likely be going.”

For a moment, Ben wants to ask him to stay, just a few more minutes, just a little while longer, just...just not to leave. But he doesn’t. Instead, he ducks inside, George on his heel, avoiding eye-contact with the customers. George insists on settling his bill, against Adrienne’s insistence and, soon after that, leaves.

Ben wipes his table down, that heavy weight returned promptly, settling into place as if it were never gone. It sits, nice and solid, as he clears away the two plates and mugs. Why he looks back, he’ll never know, but he does. He looks back down at the table and only just stops himself from swiping off the scrap of paper. George must’ve done it before he finished paying, pinned it down gently with the edge of his mug. It was gently resting on top of a fold of bills, the top one already more than George paid for his scone and coffee.

His number was neatly printed on it, a swift and sweeping _G.W._ right at the top. Very carefully and very slowly, he picks it up, staring at the carefully-written numbers. For a moment he forgets why he left his phone upstairs, why he couldn’t bear to bring it with him. For a moment, all he thinks about is this.

It floods back because it always floods back, because it _will always_ flood back. It floods back, awash on a tide of anxiety and darkness and fear and loathing. Those eyes bore into his back again and his mind reminds him how long he spent outside, staring at birds and watching the ground and dragging his eyes from the little stain on the sleeve of George’s shirt. How much time he was distracted out there, how much time he lost and wasted.

How dangerous it was to be like this.

But...but he doesn’t flee, Ben folds the little paper and tucks it away in his front pocket.

“Benjamin,” Adrienne’s voice is sweet as ever as she summons him back to the counter, steaming cups in hand, “These to table four, and when you’re done with that would you collect the plates from twelve and empty the bin?”

He hums his agreement and tries to ignore the prickle of the back on his neck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> talk 2 me on [ tumblr ](tooeasilyconsidered.tumblr.com)


	5. Chapter 5

He doesn’t call George, and he doesn’t do anything Sackett would have told him was a healthy and reasonable way to cope with events like these. Instead, Ben went back upstairs after his shift and picked apart the croissant Adrienne had forced him to take for lunch. 

There wasn’t much in him that really wanted to eat it, so he just let his fingers tear it up into smaller and smaller chunks until the slow swish of the fan threatened to blow crumbs all over the floor.

Whatever panic had been rolling around in his veins was numbed by his break, which he spent sprinting up to his apartment and swallowing a dose and a half of Klonopin. 

Sackett would have told him to go to the store and get something real to eat. Nathan would’ve dragged him by the arm to get actual pillowcases for his bedding. Caleb would’ve brought home a 12-pack and let Ben drink half of one in abject silence, staring at the wall wondering how his life collapsed this way.

But no one was there. So he lays down instead, staring at the window closest to his bed. He spins a pill bottle between his fingers, considering the pros and cons of staying up all night to monitor his surroundings, to ruminate on the man in the shop, to berate himself for hours.  

But it’s a give and a take, sleep means missing the safety of constant monitoring. Sleep means he won’t know if John texts him again. Sleep means if there’s a sound outside, the breaking branches or rummaging trash, he won’t hear it. 

Sleep isn’t safe. Ben closes his eyes, sucking in a deep breath, and then another one. And then a third. 

His hands twist the bottle open, and tries to forget it all for just a night. 

He doesn’t work the next morning, so he spends as much of it in bed as he can feasibly so, before the anxious gnawing in his stomach finally forces him up off the mattress and into the kitchen. 

There’s not much in the way of food, so he ends up with a hearty breakfast of popcorn and instant coffee. Sundays the cafe opens later, which means he doesn’t need to be down until a little nearly ten, but he still dawdles around his apartment until finally showering and being just a couple seconds short of being late.

They don’t talk about the day before, but Ben can see it in their traded glances. How unstable he obviously is, how broken something must be inside him.

It’s written on their faces how much of it they see, and the nervousness bubbles around an unidentified and illogical anger that he carries in his pocket until he’s finally allowed to take off his apron and stalk his way back upstairs, throwing himself down for another repeated cycle. 

It goes, on a loop, for the next week. Then the next. Nathan texts him, calls him, Caleb, Anna, and Abe too. 

And John. 

But Ben doesn’t pick up, he lets the voicemails build in his inbox without listening to them. There’s no sleep without medication anymore, he’d tried but it wouldn’t come. Instead, he stared at the ceiling and the windows, getting up to check every few hours. Windows were locked, curtains drawn. John hasn’t said he knows where Ben is, the door is locked.

There’s no one lurking outside, the windows are locked. There’s no one hiding in the dark corners of his apartment, the door is locked. He rations his pills the best he can but his supply runs low at the middle of the second month.

He lets the anxiety swell and swell and swell until he caves, tapping the edge of the empty pill-bottle against his kitchen table, hold music ringing from his phone.

“Dr. Nathaniel Sackett, how many I be of service,” the familiar, accented, voice is almost soothing as it cuts out the forth loop of the almost annoyingly soothing piano music. 

Ben hesitates long enough for Sackett to question, “Hello?”

“Sorry, uh. Hi, Dr. Sackett. It’s Ben Tallmadge.”

Immediately, he exclaims: “Oh! Benjamin, it has been a while since I have heard from you. How is Virginia treating you?”

“It’s… it’s okay. Better than New York. And Connecticut.” 

And the potential for California. 

But he doesn’t add that, and it turns out, he doesn’t need to because Sackett asks anyway. “I must admit I was confused to hear you’d resettled in, oh, somewhere Virginia. At our last appointment you said you were moving to California, did you not?”

“Yeah, I was gonna stay with a friend of mine from college, I just thought it was too… y’know.”

“Predictable,” Sackett finishes. “An understandable fear given what you have been put through, Benjamin. Do you feel safer in Virginia than you think you would in California?”

No. “Yes.”

“Are you doing better in Virginia than you think you would in California?”

No. “Yes.”

“Have you been sleeping better in Virginia than you think you would in California?”

Haha. Fuck no. “Yes.”

“Well, since you must be being completely honest with me, I see of no good reason why this could be considered a bad thing, Benjamin. Though, I am assuming you didn’t call me just to discuss your recent move. Shall I made an educated guess?”

Ben slots his thumbnail into a groove in his table, frowning down at it. His phone buzzes gently against his ear, alerting him to whatever new texts or emails he was getting. Probably spam. Or Nate. “I was hoping I could get a refill. I haven’t, uh, I haven’t had time to find anyone here. Plus where I live is a little… out of the way.”

“Right… and you sold your car, didn’t you?” Ben can hear Sackett moving around while he talks, shuffling papers and things around the desk that always seemed chaotically organized whenever Ben actually could get out of the house to physically  _ visit  _ his office. He doesn’t wait for an answer, which means he obviously remembers that Ben said he did, and that that snap decision was the cause of Ben being late at least twice. “You’re actually overdue for a refill, and if you are willing to make me a gentleman's agreement, Benjamin, I think we can make something work.”

He pauses in his restless fidgeting. “Yeah?”

“Call me again, in two weeks time. The front desk can make you an appointment.”

“Yeah,” Ben croaks, setting the bottle down. “Sure, Dr. Sackett.”

There’s goodbyes and Ben’s re-directed back to the desk, spitting out whatever pharmacy he vaguely remembers being closest and confirming dates before he hangs up. Wiping off his phone screen, he checks the text he received. 

Not from Nathan, but instead of Gilbert. 

“Hello my dutiful and favorite employee!” It reads, despite the fact that Ben is Gilbert’s  _ only  _ employee. “I am aware that it is your day off, but we have run dangerously low on honey and that new soap he’s produced. If you could pop by his shop and retrieve a few crates, I would be forever indebted to you!”

He kinda wants to say no. To just not respond, wait a few hours and shoot back an apology, but Ben was asleep, or out on his way to the pharmacy or the store.

But there was no escaping without Gilbert noticing. And Ben had seen George a few times, here and there, every one of his brunches he was there, every one of his meetings with Gilbert, every few weeks to drop off another box of honey or fresh soaps or something new he’d made just for the shop. 

He hasn’t called him, though. Or texted him. Or, for more than a few passing comments, actually really talked to him. 

Not that George had upset him, but… well… that afternoon, outside watching the birds soar and swoop. It was almost too much in how comforting it is. Like George could see his past laid out before him, like George knew just how badly he was breaking. 

He shoots a confirmation back to Gilbert, wandering back to his closet, where just a few weeks ago he actually put his clothes up. He gets dressed, pulling on an oversized hoodie despite the fact that it’s pushing ninety, grabs his keys, his wallet, and checks the doors and windows one last time. 

Without the chemical assistance, he hesitates at his door a little longer than usual, staring at it and considering his options. He told Gilbert he was going to, and to text him back changing his mind feels like the sort of thing only massive assholes do.

Finally, he grunts and goes. The walk to George’s is fast, especially considering how much Ben does  _ not  _ want to be seen outside by anyone right now. He hurries down the shaded half of the walkway, ignoring everyone who even tries to look at him. 

In the distance, the shop sign sways in the breeze and Ben just keeps his thoughts on it. He pushes a little too hard through the door, glad beyond reason that it’s empty today. 

In the corner, just like he’d been that first day Ben was there, Sweet Lips raises his head at the clanging of the bell and the hardness with which the door fell shut behind him. 

“Just a second,” calls George from the back, and it’s a few rapid breaths before he finally emerges, shocked look crossing his face before he trains it back. “Ben, I didn’t expect you. What can I help you with?”

It’s hard to force himself to speak, but he does anyway, “Gilbert sent me. They’re low on honey and some new soap.” 

As soon as he said it, something else laced through George’s usually passive expression. He sighed, and it was gone again. “I should’ve guessed. He called this morning, but we got swamped with some tour bus group and,” he gestured back towards the door, “I’ve been behind. I’ve got several crates to label and, as tedious as the task is someone must.”

Ben has no idea what provoked him to do this, maybe it was because there was some strange semblance of assurance that came with the closeness of the store. Maybe it was the bareness of some shelves and tables that Ben knows used to be fully stocked. Or maybe it was because the idea of going outside again is going to give him a genuine panic attack, but he shrugs one shoulder and just suggests: “I can help if you really need it. It’s my day off so Gilbert isn’t actually expecting me.”

“If it’s your day off, I really can’t ask you to help me then, Ben. But thank you, it’s kind of you to offer. You should be resting, enjoying yourself.”

He doesn’t scoff, but he wants to. There’s nothing restful about his apartment. Nothing relaxing about checking the windows every ten minutes, nothing rejuvenating about tapping his foot, looking between the window and the door wondering if this time, John was going to call, to show up, to come drag him kicking and screaming back to New York. 

There is nothing calming about being home. Nothing to enjoy there. 

But he doesn’t say it, because even Ben knows that’s just fucking depressing. 

He shrugs again. “I don’t have anything better to do, and you look like you could use a hand.” 

That seems to be enough to make George concede, and he tilts his head to gesture Ben through the doorway into the back of the shop. Sure enough, it’s a fucking mad house back there. 

The front had held a nice scent of jasmine, which Ben figured was a soap he was standing close to, but in the back it was almost overpowering. George jerked his thumb back towards the rows of shallow plastic boxes lined up next to the stove. “Just finished soap.” he doesn’t explain more, instead, moving around to where a half-dozen boxes of blank jars, all filled and sealed, were stacked beside a smaller box of labels. 

George demonstrates the first one. “Just peel and stick,” he says, doing exactly so. He gestures for Ben to do it to. It’s a little bubbly, and Ben frowns at it, but George takes it nonetheless and moves it to the empty box on the other side of the table. George did another, and then Ben followed suit, this one coming out much better. “You got it.”

Between the rising temperature outside and the stove still going, sweat prickles the back of Ben’s neck already. He peels another label and sticks it to another jar. His eyes flicker up to the exits. There’s only two, not counting the back office. But that door is wide open, showing the ill-contained papers and tiny desk crammed in the corner. Peel and stick. He can see both exits from where he stands, he knows the door rings whenever it’s opened. Peel and stick.

There are no windows in the back, nothing to peer into. Peel and stick. You can’t even see him from the windows of the front. Peel and stick. His heart rate starts to slow. Peel and stick. For the first time, in a very long time, he feels less like a caged animal, put on displaying, waiting for someone to read his damaged ear-tag and send him tumbling back into John Andre’s arms. 

Peel and stick. He fills the bottom of the first box, looking over his shoulder back to where George fusses with the soaps, dropping color in to make the swirling designs on the setting product. Not long after that, George heaves them up one by one to a shelving unit, filling about a quarter of it to let them settle. Another quarter was filled already, George takes those down and puts them on another table.

Once that was done, he took the pot off and set it aside, pulling up a new one and moving to the industrial cabinet. More materials came out, more shallow containers, more jars, and a box of something white. Peel and stick.

George noticed him watching, holding up the box that caught Ben’s attention the most. “Soap base.” Peel and stick. “Actually making soap is a several week processes, in which you have to cure it to ensure the lye is no longer toxic. Some of us cut down on the time by making our own soap bases in advance. I dedicate the hours a few times a year to make them in bulk and then melt down the base, add in scents, colors, or whatever additions I need to make, and let them sit for a few days instead. Makes it so I can put out product faster in a pinch.”

Peel and stick. George dumps the box of base into another double-boiler, and goes about it. Ben turns around fully this time, more intrigued by the processes as he labels the jars. George stirs the chunks of soap, back obscuring most of the movement as he makes it.

One he adds things from the jars the scent in the air changes slowly. Jasmine blends with something citrus and herbal, a touch more savory than the sweetness of the flower from before. 

It’s soothing, almost. Ben keeps his hands moving, the repetitive motion making his arms ache a little but in a nice way. A comforting way. 

He shifts his weight from foot to foot, kinda wishing he’d worn his comfortable work shoes instead of his lazy ones. Peel and stick. George is still stirring this batch when Ben decides it’s too hot and strips off his hoodie, unable to find a decent place to set it, he ties it around his waist. 

Even the exposure doesn’t burn his skin like it normally does, he doesn’t feel laid bare or raw in the dark t-shirt he’d put on in order to come here. He turns back around, watches the exists, the two doors in his line of site the only thing he has to keep track of. 

George behind him, knowing Sweet Lips is on on guard at the door. Peel and stick. 

Maybe he should get a dog, he thinks to himself. But then again, he looks down. He can’t even take care of himself. He can’t even remember the last time he’s eaten. 

Frowning, Ben looks down at his jars. He’d filled one of the boxes of labeled jars and almost half of another. He just continued on, only looking up every once in a while. 

It’s a deathly sort of quiet, the kind where Ben can hear the puff of his own breath and the slide of shoes over concrete as George moves behind him. The kind where Ben can hear it all, can listen for anything out of the ordinary between the distant snorts of a half-asleep dog in the other room. 

The only thing that interrupts him and makes him jolt, is when the front door jingles an arrival. 

He freezes, cold and suddenly on-edge, but George just looks up. “I’ve got it, you’re doing amazing, Ben, just keep going.” 

And he disappears, leaving Ben to shakily apply another label, this one crooked. Ben can hear them talk, hear some woman’s voice, paired with a child and a man. He can hear  George offer samples, advice. 

He can hear it all, but it doesn’t stop his heart from kicking off again, like a race starting at the sound of a gunshot, or a horse bursting past the now-open stable door. It’s almost violent in how sudden and hard it is, throwing him off-kilter enough that Ben scrapes a label off a jar and has to re-do it, setting himself back a little.

A breath in, a breath out. He watches the exits. A breath in, a breath out, he watches the exits. The family leaves, apparently buying enough honey and soap to last a lifetime, and George reappears again. “I don’t think I thanked you yet for helping me,” he says, standing there with a look that Ben doesn’t understand.

Ben himself shrugs, peeling and sticking another label. “I find repetitive work relaxing. More than sitting in my apartment and staring at the wall, at least.” 

“Still, if it weren’t for you that batch of soap wouldn’t be finished and only a quarter of those jars would be done. Thank you, Benjamin. I mean it.” A pause, where Georges like he might say something, but he doesn’t. He’s quiet, as he goes back to the soap station, pulling up those older ones and picking up some large cutting tool.

Each mold makes eight soaps, judging by how George cuts them, and George brings the cut soaps and a box of different labels to the other half of the table, across from Ben. He lays out a piece of wax paper, folds it around the soap, slips a cardboard sleeve over them, sticks a label to that, and puts it aside. Fold, slip, label. 

Ben watches, peeling and sticking his way through the end of the third box.

A dozen more customers come and go by the time George calls it quits and Gilbert gives up on texting Ben’s silenced phone and calls him instead. George explains himself that he was backlogged and didn’t have the materials, in that calm, even tone that makes everything seem like less of an issue. 

George goes himself, leaving Ben to continue to the peeling and sticking, to deliver the goods, coming back less than a handful of minutes later. “Are you hungry?” He asks, once he gets back. Ben’s stomach gives a twist, but he only shrugs in response. 

“Chinese and pizza are the only things out here that deliver, and I was craving lo mein earlier.”

Ben peels and sticks. “Sounds good. I can head out whenever, by the way. I just,” he looks down, “I’m not quite done yet. But it’s only a box or so left.”

“Leave it,” George says, “and stick around, dinner’s my treat, it’s the least I could do since you spent your day off labeling my jars.” 

He finishes the last one and stops, his first step away from the table feeling a little dizzying. He sits on a little fold-out chair in the office, sipping from a Pepsi George had procured from his mini-fridge. George orders, and they chat a bit, about business, work, about Gilbert and Adrienne and the best pastries at the shop.

About Adrienne trying her damndest to keep feeding Ben, about Chicago, which apparently is where George lived before Virginia. It seems like a moment, until the food arrives, less time until they’re done eating, Ben poking at his noodles with his chopsticks while George tosses a piece of chicken to a clearly begging Sweet Lips.

“So,” Ben asks, watching him hoover it up off the floor, “why Sweet Lips?”

George watches the lazy dog sit and look up for more, with a sort of unending and incomprehensible fondness. It’s the sort of look that Ben doesn’t understand, the kind he can’t quite imagine ever being on the receiving end of. “The first day I had him, he licked up spilled honey and tried to eat a bee. Whole face swelled up. He was just a month or two old, too.”

He’s not sure why, but Ben finds himself smiling, a rough and rare laugh curling in his chest. “Nice,” he half-chuckles, reaching down and giving Sweet Lips a pet. “Smart boy.”

“He is now,” George concedes, stretching and giving the dog a weary pat. “I think I best bring the old man home so he can get some real food.”

Ben agrees, almost sad that the day’s already over. But, well, he checks his the clock on the wall and it’s pushing nine. Funny, he thinks, he doesn’t remember it getting so goddamn late. 

He makes his way home under the cover of darkness, stomach full for the first time in longer than Ben can remember. He slips his hoodie back on for the trek, but strips it off once he's safely inside. His feet drag as he does his usual inspection of every dark corner and shadow, re-locking and re-locking the windows and door, just to be certain. He kicks his jeans into a pile and pours himself back down onto the bed as soon as he can, staring at that little scrap of paper sitting on his nightstand. 

for the first time since he put it there, Ben picks it up. Ignoring the missed calls and the alerts of all the emails he never responded to, read, or deleted, and punches in the number.   
  
"My next day off is Wednesday," he types, "If you need more help then, I'd be glad to lend a hand. -- Benjamin."   
  
A few seconds later, his phone buzzes and the bubble slides up beneath Ben's. "I think I could find something for you to do. Thank you, again, Ben."  
  
Setting his phone down, Ben rolls onto his stomach and grips his pillow, eyes sliding shut with ease.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't lie to your therapists, kids. But hey, look at this man making soap!
> 
> I had to do a LOT of math for this chapter, I know it doesn't look like it, but I did.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **_Chapter Warning_ **  
>  This chapter contains an extreme anxiety/panic attack, as well as signs of PTSD in an abuse survivor. There are also mentions of and flashbacks to physical domestic abuse.   
> There is also blood/burning. If you're concerned/sensitive to this kind of material, please take heed and engage with the content at your own discretion.

Ben texts George first thing on his next day off, showering and getting ready quick as he has in a long time, he wraps soaps while George mans the front, sinking into that same warm, comfortable feeling from before until George tells him they’re closed. 

He buys dinner again, letting them both bask in some calming quiet, only broken up by light conversation. What business was like for the day, what business is usually like, what Ben all managed to get done. Its warm. Comfortable. 

Ben craves it like he imagines addicts do, wiping tables and day-dreaming about that cramped, dark shopback. He works mornings most days, being let go around two and once or twice he finds himself sneaking out the back as soon as his shift is over, scurrying down to George’s shop. 

“Need a hand?” He’d ask, pulling at his hoodie sleeves and picking a treat from the jar for Sweet Lips. George would raise his brows, give him that same puzzled but welcoming look, and scrounge up some work in the back for Ben to keep himself busy. Usually, it’s labeling, or wrapping, or scrubbing wax from molds and pots, or organizing files. Anything quiet and repetitive to pass the hours. 

He tells Dr. Sackett, earning the first little sliver of genuine praise.  _ “It sounds to me like you’re making a friend,”  _ he says during one of their call-in appointments. 

Ben shrugs at his kitchen table, digging his thumb into a scratch. “I guess. He’s nice.”

_ “And you feel safer there? Because he’s there.”  _

He tries not to think about that, and instead, answers with a non-committal, “There’s only two entrances, and I can see them while I’m working. No windows, no places to hide, there’s nowhere I can be watched from in there.” He could hear the sounds of Sackett writing that down. 

It goes back and forth like that, just like it does the next week, and the week after that. 

Ben sleeps sounder than ever, too. Caleb suggests it’s the overworking, the cafe then the honey shop, up early and in bed late. Eating either a fistful of popcorn and crackers in his apartment or an actually filling dinner with George, combined with the cheese croissant that Adrienne insists on dropping in front of him whenever it’s around lunchtime. 

It’s nice, but Ben’s fairly certain it would be better for him if he could feel a little safe in his own home--and maybe those are Sacketts words, maybe something he’s been saying to him for the past year, maybe Ben’s been writing it off as a lost cause, either way he shows up for his next cafe shift with a goal in mind. 

He shows up exactly on time, apron folded over and tied around his waist, morning prep work done in the silence and emptiness of the cafe. At least, until Gilbert comes out of the back whistling. But it's far less startling now than it had been, and Ben only barely flinched this time, which is what Dr. Sackett would certainly call progress. 

Either way, he stays focus, eyeing Gilbert as he fills up the pastry case and moves some to be wrapped up and dumped in a discount bin. Ben sets out the chairs, finishing up a few tables before rubbing his hands on his apron and asking, “Hey, Gil?” 

“Yes, Benjamin?” Gilbert adjusts the croissants before filling an entire box in the case full of cookies. “What can I provide you with this morning?”

He takes a deep breath. “I just had a question. Dumb probably, and the answer is probably no but do you think I could make just a really minor alteration to the apartment?” 

Gilbert pauses, looking up. “Depends on what alterations, does it not?”

Deep breaths, calming breaths, soothing breaths. Ben has to get used to asking for things, he figures, so this was as good as it was going to get. “I just wanted to add a lock, like one of those sliding bar ones or the ones you see in hotels with the chain or the bar?” 

His heart seals itself in his chest and Ben has to think very carefully about all the things he's planned to say in his own defense. He racks up his arguments as Gilbert fixes him with a strange look.

“That is certainly an acceptable alteration, I am going to Home Depot tonight after closing if you would like yo join me,” he decided, after a moment and them promptly goes back filling the boxes and cases. 

Ben almost deflates with how easy it was. With all his carefully practiced and rehearsed commentary out the window, he can't think of anything else to say, so he just nods and mutters his thanks.

There's a more commercial edge of town, taking over what Ben assumes what once was clusters of local mom-and-pops, which holds the only home supply store that anyone tells Ben about. He hitches a ride with Gilbert once the shop is closed and cleaned, letting him talk the whole way about what he needs, what the house needs, what the shop needs. 

Something about new screws for wobbling chairs and bolts for leaky sinks. 

Ben half listens, fingers twitching against his pant leg as he tries to count down how long it's been since he’s taken his meds. It takes the whole time they spend going between two faucet knobs to psych himself up to ask Gilbert if they can stop by a pharmacy on the way back. 

“I just have...stuff to pick up,” he said, sweaty fingers scrambling to keep hold to the list Gilbert put him in charge of. 

Beside him, Gilbert hums, squinting at the displays. “Of course. Will you need to go to this pharmacy often? If so, we should find one closer.”

His hand finds its way into the bucket of bolts, finding something to squeeze. “Yeah. Close would be nice.” The grooves bite into his hand, dull pain reminding him he's here and John isn't and Gilbert isn't John. Gilbert isn't going to sigh and tell Ben how needy and dependant he is. Gilbert isn't going to throw Ben against the wall, ask him if he knows how much Gilbert does for him, if he just doesn't care or if he's too stupid to realize. 

Gilbert won't. 

He won't, he just won't. 

In. Out. 

In. Out. 

He drops the bolt and tears his eyes away from the bucket, only to find Gilbert's tracking him carefully. 

“Shall we?” He asks, delicately avoiding the question. 

Ben nods, withdrawing his hand and drawing his thumb over the imprint of the grooves. It takes much less time, once they find the locks, for Ben to pick out his preferred lock choice. The kind with the chain and the slide seems most secure to him, if only because there’s a definite click and he can see if it’s locked from across the room.

He carries it, seperate from Gilbert’s little basket full of items, and it isn’t even until they’re next in line at check out that Ben even realizes he doesn’t have anything to install it with. He’s used up all of his favors, all of his questions, already and he can’t bring himself to ask Gilbert to loan him some tools and he can’t bring himself to inconvenience the man  _ more  _ by forcing him to dip out of the line and go all the way back to the end. Desperately, Ben searches the nearby displays, but he’s too late, Gilbert’s checking out and at some point he’s lost the lock that he’d been clutching to his chest and Jesus Christ where did it go?

His head whips around, sharp enough to make his vision blur as he scans for where he must’ve absently set it down. He only spots it when it’s in the cashiers hand, scanned and bagged right before Gilbert’s new wrench.

“Oh,” Ben steps forward, “no, that was--”   
“It’s faster as one transaction, Benjamin.” He feels his face flush nonetheless, and he drops his chin to his chest on instinct. Gilbert doesn’t reprimand him, though. He just slides his card into the chip reader and shrugs. “As well, I am inclined to believe that it is my responsibility as your landlord, yes? You will have to install it yourself, unfortunately, as I am… how does Addie say?  _ Incompetent?  _ With tools.”

He wants to say something sharp, something clever, back--but it all piles up, and the first word stops short in his throat, every one after careening wildly into the back of the previous until it’s nothing but a smoldering wreck. He clears them away with a cough, resetting so he can squeak out a meager, “Thank you.”

Gilbert waves his hand, not even acknowledging the wavering in Ben’s voice, which he appreciates more than anything else. He pretends, on the way out, that Ben’s payment is carrying the bags, both of which weigh just a little more than nothing.

That, he prods from the drivers side of the compact little thing, and accompanying him through a grocery store. Though, Gilbert readily careens the cart in opposite directions once Ben sheepishly asks him if they can grab some frozen veggies and maybe a few boxes of pasta. 

The bright lights are harsh on him, and he grabs at his wrists every few minutes, desperately itching for his hoodie sleeves to drag down past his fingers and something, anything to cover his face from anyone who might try to grab a glance at him. It eats and eats and eats until Ben really insists on grabbing his own things and darting through self checkout. 

And once he’s done, he’s ready to go home. Ready to pull the curtains and slink into bed (newly outfitted with actual sheets and pillowcases courtesy of Caleb and his last facetime ending with Caleb refusing to take no for an answer and shipping some to  _ John Bolton  _ at the cafe’s address) and just hide away there. 

He, admittedly, forgets about the pharmacy until Gilbert pulls in, idling in the parking lot as he returns a few messages to his wife. Ben remembers why they’re there slowly, the exhaustion that chomps down on his ankles is only quieted by the rumbling fear of telling Gilbert he changed his mind too late. He was stupid and forgot they were going here, a fucking idiot who just wanted to go home because he couldn’t swallow down the idea of being so exposed.

They linger in the rattling coolness of the A/C before Gilbert opens the door to the thick, humid, outside with a low grunt. 

“Time to brave the heat once more, my friend,” he grimaces, as if they’re sharing, happily, in the same kind of annoyance and dread. Ben just manages a weak smile back, teeth gritting so hard they might crack. 

He chews back everything he can to just shuffle immediately back to the pharmacy counter, squeaking out in front of Gilbert and muttering to the woman behind the counter. “Hi.”

She beams back at him, an orthodontist perfect smile and a honey-fake accent. “Hello, darlin’, how can I help you?” 

“I uh, I was hoping to get a few prescriptions transferred?” His back is exposed to the rest of the store, sending an itch over his shoulders and yanks his head back to look behind him. The top of Gilbert’s head bobs somewhere in the seasonal section, a respectable distance away, and there’s no one else in the sleepy little store. Ben tries to exhale, tries to be smooth.

She just smiles back, plastic and human all at once, and asks her questions. Ben answers, giving phone numbers, prescriptions, locations, he doesn’t have the bottles on him, he’s really sorry. Of course, here’s his ID. Yeah, he’ll wait. 

“I can call your name when I need you back, Mr. Tallmadge,” she offers, and Ben’s heart immediately finds it’s home right back on the back of his tongue. 

It’s bad enough the irrational part of him is terrified at the prospect of transferring his meds at all. What if John finds out, charms his way past the defenses of some overworked person at the counter, schmoozes under the guise of picking up his nervous boyfriends medication and--oh no, it’s been moved? Oh well that certainly cannot be right, moved where? 

Fucking hell, Ben can  _ hear it,  _ he can hear that lilting voice curling in his head, purring and promising and coming up with lies after lies until he finds out that Ben’s somewhere in Virginia--and then coming here--

Coming here and hearing his name-- _ Tallmadge-- _ announced over a loudspeaker for the whole store to hear--

His throat closes up and his nails are biting so hard into his wrist he isn’t sure which will break first, them or his skin. 

Her smile wavers. “Just wait right here, okay?” It would be a nice gesture, if her eyes weren’t brimming with confused trepidation. 

It’s a breath in, breath out. Breath in, breath out. He steps to the side, examines some vitamins. Time ticks by in a haze on haze on haze, Gilbert slinks back, and Ben can barely give him a half-apologetic smile for making him wait before he trots back to Ben’s side. He talks, about what, Ben doesn’t know, he doesn’t remember. It goes in one ear and out the other and there’s nothing, nothing, nothing. All Ben can offer are a series of  _ yeah’s _ in an effort to keep the conversation moving inch by inch by inch until he sees the pharmacist again.

She emerges and gestures, her lips pressed tight together as Ben bows his head as a little  _ excuse me.  _

“I’m sorry, sir, it looks like it’s going to take a little bit of time. We’ll call you as soon as you can come pick them up though.”

 

**_###_ **

  
  


Everything afterwards is a blur. He gets home, manages some mixed and half-coherent responses to Gilbert’s 

It’s too much to install the lock, to figure out how to do it and how to do it right and where to even get tools to do it so Ben just slides a chair in front of his door and sets up a few trip-wires worth of empty cans at his windows before collapsing face-first into his sheets. 

His sleep like the dead. The kind of hard, heavy, dreamless sleep that leaves him with the imprint of his shorts waistband across his stomach and an embarrassingly large drool puddle on his pillow. 

He clambers for the little analog clock on his nightstand, squinting at the numbers before trading to glare at the windows. The cans are all in their little lines, undisturbed over the course of the night. The chair by the door hasn’t so much as squeaked. Ben sniffs and rubs under his nose, just sitting there for a moment before he drags himself up. It’s another day off, which means George is expecting him in the way that he isn’t. 

Ben never made an agreement to actually go over there today--which means he technically doesn't have to. He can sink back into the mattress and lay down and just disappear into the not-so-safe-safety of his home. 

But then his phone buzzes from the nightstand.

_ Don’t look at it,  _ he chides himself in a voice sounding suspiciously like his therapist, but he can’t stop his hand from snaking out, snatching the 90% dead device,  _ Don’t do it,  _ and slide through all the notifications still humming from the day before. A few are Gilbert, checking in in the kind of way that he’s trying to not make it obvious that he’s checking in.

His fingers find the bright-red one that sticks to his messenger app, and every single nerve in his body is screaming at him not to, ramping up the worst possible options again and again--John telling him he’s found him, a picture of Ben’s apartment from the outside, a notice of delivery for flowers from John again, John, John, John--

He clicks it with his breath trembling and--

George.  _ George.  _ Just George. An innocuous text, toeing the waters to see if Ben was going to come over today.  _ It’s quiet,  _ it reads,  _ there’s only a half crate of jars left to label and a few molds to scrape. However, if you were so inclined, I’m sure Sweet Lips would enjoy the company nonetheless.  _

Ben doesn’t respond when he slips out of bed and onto the eggshells that it feels like he’s been walking on all week. He pads over to the kitchen, rummaging through the bags from the grocery store yesterday until he find the sleeve of crackers he’d convinced himself to buy. 

He uses a fistful to quell the raging in his stomach long enough to think of a justifiable rejection. It itches under his skin and he drafts a few messages, a few excuses. He wasn’t feeling good, he was sick, he was tired, he never wants to leave the house again--but every time the clouds move, throwing shadows somewhere else in his apartment, it makes him jump and twitch and crave the dark quiet of the honey shop. The protection of knowing that George was just outside, that Sweet Lips was there. 

He gnaws his lip, and tells George he’ll be there in ten. He changes, pulling his well-worn hoodie on over whatever he decided to wear and zipping it up to his throat anyway. He barely checks himself in the mirror, even, too discomforted by his own sallow appearance. The jacket swallows him in ways it didn’t when he bought it, swarthing around him and hanging loose from his frame. 

It really highlights the fucking massive bags under his eyes and the shadows under his cheekbones. 

His fingertips brush them as he grabs his keys, and he tries really, really, hard to not think about how much they look like bruises.

It takes a few more minutes than he’d like to, and anxiety chews on the knot in his throat once he finishes checking his lines at the windows and he realizes that he’s running late. Logically--he knows George won’t care. He knows George won’t care if he’s late but he said he’d be there in ten and that means ten. 

He’s a sweaty mess, soaking the collar of his stupid hoodie that he knows he shouldn’t even be wearing because it’s like ninety fucking degrees but he can’t make himself stop feeling that itching of exposure whenever he’s not totally covered. 

He tugs at the collar to get a bit of airflow, cheeks burning and probably splotchy once he hits the air conditioned shop. George looks up as soon as the bell rings, almost greeting him before his brow pinches in concerned.

Ben tenses, knowing full well he said he would be here eight minutes ago and that should mean eight minutes ago and if he’s late he’s wasting Georges time and why couldn’t he just go and why couldn’t he just fucking buck up for once and stop wasting everyone’s time?

George frowns tight, circling back from the counter. “Let me get you some water, Benjamin, you look overheated,” he says, instead of handing Ben the reaming he so deserves. 

All Ben can do is swallow around that pit and shake his head and shove his trembling hands into the pockets of his jacket. “No-no, I’m fine. Sorry I’m late, I got...distracted.”

“You’re not late, Benjamin,” George points out, despite the fact that Ben was supposed to be here eight minutes ago. “Go get comfortable in the back, there’s plenty of fans up. I decided this morning that I’d like to take a crack at a new soap design I thought of a few days ago.” 

Ben scurries past, not even stopping to stoop down and pet Sweet Lips, who’s currently occupying his spot curled in a wrinkly lump. There’s a half-crate of unlabeled jars, maybe a dozen or so bars of soap, and George’s whole set up. 

The fans cut a nice breeze, more so than the air conditioning in the store, though Ben’s pretty sure that’s just because George is forced to use the stove for this and it’s already hotter than Hades out there. George follows him into the back, tapping the table a few times. “You know what to do."

And Ben certainly does. He hits the soaps first, because they require less deft of hand movements. The wrapping can be a little sloppy because it’s hidden by the paper sleeve, and the movement gives Ben a little time to learn how to handle how bad he’s still shaking. 

He speeds it up as soon as he can, maybe a little more than desperate to make up for the lost time, zooming through the soap packaging and moving onto the honey. That requires more precision, and he curses himself every time his line up shakes out of evenness. 

One sticks crooked and he hisses under his breath. Stupid jar. Stupid label. Stupid hands. He sets it down a little harder and moves onto the next. Stupid Ben. The whir of the fans and the scrape of the stirrer against the pot are the only conversation through the soaps and onto the first few jars. Despite the overworked fans, it gets agonizingly hot, and Ben finally strips his jacket and leaves it folded on the table.

George drops in peppermint, letting the scent seep through the thick summer air, followed by something strongly medicinal. Ben’s nose crinkles sharply. “What is that?”

“Tea tree oil,” he throws over his shoulder. “A friend of mine, he has three young daughters--I say young, the eldest is almost nineteen and the youngest is fourteen--they’ve been apparently into these soaps for acne. He recommended I look into a recipe for it.” 

Ben hums, going back to his jars as George goes back to his soaps. One batch goes into a mold while George pours a measure of base into a new top of the double-boiler. 

Something keeps biting at Ben, latching into all his pressure points and churning in his gut. The air feels suddenly thick, heavy and ominous, as the silence pushes down at him and he can’t place why. Maybe it’s the sound of cars outside, louder than he thinks they ever were, but he’s on edge enough that he jumps when the bell alerts them both that a customer arrived.

“Can you stir this for me? Careful, the bottom gets incredibly hot,” George asks, knocking Ben back to reality as he wipes his hands on his shorts. 

“Yeah, sure,” Ben mumbles, leaving the jar where he was standing and taking up the metal spoon instead. He takes deep breaths, trying to steady his nerves but it freezes and hits the bottom of his lungs hard and cold when he hears the voice in the front.

_ “We’ve just been driving through, we’re down from New York,” _ it purrs, overt British accent piercing to Ben’s ears. He knows, he knows it’s not but it can’t be but it has to be. All at once he can’t breathe, because it can’t be, it can’t be--it’s not--and Ben knows it’s not he knows it’s not he knows it’s not he knows--his whole chest seizes and he can’t--he knows it’s not. 

It doesn’t even sound like him, but it’s close enough that Ben can hear the echoes, can hear his voice sleeping in, can feel John’s presence lurking just on the other side of the wall. 

The shop tilts to one side then the next, spoon clattering from his hand and he goes to grab it--or to steady himself--or to reach out and grasp reality but instead he plants his hand on the edge of the searing metal (he can’t scream he can’t scream because he doesn’t know--he doesn’t know if it’s him, it’s not him, but it might be--maybe he found out, maybe he asked the pharmacy, maybe he--maybe he--maybe he--)

He recoils too hard, small of his back colliding  _ hard  _ with the edge of the table. (It can’t be it can’t be it  _ can’t be)  _ He hisses, hand curled against his chest ( _ it can’t be)  _ and glass shattered behind him. (it’s windows it’s his front door it’s a vase by his head, it’s the candle that was on their coffee table, it’s the water glass--) 

Oh, God George is going to kill him. Fuck, fuck George is going to kill him. He whips around, sliding around the table to try to see what of the crate of honey jars he can rescue but they’re all shattered. Shattered and oozing all over the bottom of his floor and Ben’s not stirring the soap mixture and he’s not labeling jars and he’s made a fucking mess because that’s what he does. 

He drops to his knees in an instant, ignoring the slice of agony when his good hand catches on a sharp edge of glass and no-no he can’t be making more of a mess not when he’s trying to clean it up and George is going to hear and he’s going to bring him (it’s not him, it’s him it’s not him its him its not him) and they’re going to find him and George is going to kill him--

Ben’s eyes are too blurry to see what he’s picking up and every time he does, depositing shards of glass on the table there’s more red dripping into the honey and his hands both throb in time with his rabbit-pace heart and why is he so fucking stupid--

Why can’t he just label the jars and stir the pot--

He can hear him, footsteps behind him, the ringing of the bell, some voice telling something to stop and sit down and he knows he’s busted now, he’s in trouble now John is going to find him and he’s going to be so mad and Ben can’t take it, he can’t handle it when he’s mad. 

The blood smears into the honey when he tries to pick it up and it smears more, making a bigger mess and Ben can’t--he can’t--he just  _ can’t. _

_ “Benjamin, stop!”  _ The voice is sharp and loud and Ben can’t, he curls his head down, defends himself a little as he pulls his hands back to himself and clambers back away from the mess he’s just making worse. 

He doesn’t want to look up, he doesn’t want to see John hovering above him, that burning rage behind blue eyes. He doesn’t want to see his chest heaving, his fingers pulled into fists at his sides. He doesn’t--he can’t. 

He can’t.

“What happened, are you alright?” The voice is softer but Ben still, he still can’t. He scoots backwards, using his aching hands to push himself a little. He’s breathing so hard he can’t breath it’s all too much and it hurts and it hurts and he doesn’t--he can’t he doesn’t know how. He screws his eyes shut when a shadow falls over him, the voice closer asking, “Benjamin, can you please look at me?”

He can’t disobey him, not now, not when he’s ruined everything. But he doesn’t want to, he doesn’t--he can’t, he can’t he  _ can’t.  _

“Benjamin,  _ please.”  _ The voice pleads and it--it can’t be John. It can’t be because it isn’t English and it isn’t yelling and he peels open one weary eye. It focuses on George, the blurry, figure kneeling at his side. And it isn’t John and, even as he scours the edges of the room John isn’t anywhere to be seen. He’s gone and it’s quiet and the only thing hovering in the doorway is Sweet Lips, sitting there with those watery brown eyes fixated on Ben.

But there’s movement at the edge of his vision and he snaps away as sharp and as fast as he can, covering his head with his burned and bloodied hands.

“It’s okay,” George says, voice hushed and soft. But Ben can’t--he can’t unfold. “Ben you’re bleeding badly, I just wanted to help you up off the floor. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have reached for you.” He holds his hands up and Ben only curls tighter, his entire body throbbing like one raw nerve. 

“No one else is here, it’s just us. You’re safe, Benjamin.”

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If a bone is too far alone its healing process and hasn't been set right, sometimes you need to break it again. Only then can it begin to heal properly.  
> Brutal, right?  
> Ask me what the fuck I think I'm doing on [tumblr](http://tooeasilyconsidered.tumblr.com/)  
> or ask me about George's POV   
> And speaking of George, isn't it incredibly great and incredibly suspicious that he's remarkably good at calming Ben down?
> 
> Also: peppermint tea tree oil soap is the shit.

**Author's Note:**

> On the [tumblr](http://tooeasilyconsidered.tumblr.com/) for headcanons, prompts, and questions
> 
> Don't do as Ben does: Take only the recommended dosage of medication.


End file.
